This isn't soft, fluffy sandwich bread. It's a hearty, flavorful sourdough loaf that makes great sandwiches but if you like Wonder Bread, this isn't for you. One of my favorites is country ham with cheese and some homemade kraut grilled in a cast iron skillet. It's also great for dipping or as toast with some organic butter and fresh jalapeño jelly.

*NOTE: you can use any combination of flours as long as they all add up to 500 grams for the recipe. I would recommend at least 60% of your flour be either bread flour or all purpose with bread flour being my choice.

Mixed all ingredients together and let sit on counter covered for 1 hour. At the end of 1 hour, I mixed in the salt and then did 3 folds at 50 minutes apart, covering with plastic wrap between folds. Any extra ingredients like fruit, nuts, bacon, cheese, herbs, etc. are adding on the second fold and stretch.

I then let it rest on the counter for 2 more hours and then dumped it out of the bowl onto a piece of floured parchment paper. I stuck that back in a colander lined with a well floured cotton towel, covered with plastic wrap and into the fridge overnight. In this case, it was about 12 hours.

Next day (today) I pre-heated the oven to 500 degrees F. with my cast iron Dutch Oven and lid in it. I took the dough out of the fridge while the oven was pre-heating and turned it out onto another piece of freshly floured parchment paper, scored it and stuck it into the Dutch Oven.

I reduced the heat to 450 degrees F. and baked 30 minutes with the lid on and 15 minutes with the lid off. I let it cool for a couple of hours before cutting it.

That sounds like a marvelous combination. Basically, a meal in a slice or two of bread.And I am not a big bread eater when there is real food to eat.My best, Blair

Logged

A Time for Prayer."In times of war and not before,God and the soldier we adore.But in times of peace and all things right,God is forgotten and the soldier slighted"by Rudyard Kipling.Blair TaylorLife-C 21

Thanks Blair. I started making my own bread about 2 years ago after reading a label that on my favorite 'healthy' store bought bread that contained 35 ingredients when basic bread only has 4; salt, water, flour and starter (or yeast for yeast breads).

I like to experiment with my bread making and have found you can put just about anything you want in it if you use common sense.

One of my teaching Docs. But I have only been making bread for about 35 years.

If you really want to impress people and make them happy, make some homemade yeast bread. I have seen people fill up on nothing but fresh bread, even turning down the offer of butter for it, often saying they haven’t had any fresh out of the oven bread since who knows when. Yet it is one of the simplest and cheapest homemade foods to make. It does take time, most often about 3 hours, (there are shortcuts I’ll get into later) but the time actually working on it is very short, so it is easy to make while doing other things like watching TV or writing a book.

With our modern freeze dried yeast, bread is pretty easy for most cooks, modern packaged yeasts date to the 1870’s although in a different form that we use today. Before that the yeasts used were less reliable than what we have today, those are a whole other subject, for this we will assume we are using modern dry yeast or perhaps the older hard to get cake yeast.

The simplest bread is going to be a simple mixture of water, yeast and flour allowed to rise and then baked. This is important to remember, every thing else added is for flavor or texture. So before we decide what recipe we want to use, let’s see what everything does to change the bread we make.

The fats we put in the bread are called shortening because it actually shortens the gluten strands in the dough, this makes the bread tenderer, but not much is really needed, in most breads a tablespoon or less per loaf is plenty. In making our true period breads, the most common shortening is going to be lard. A good example of a bread that doesn’t use shortening is what we commonly call French or Italian bread, these are a bit tougher and more chewy that a bread with shortening in it.

Sugars in any form are most often added for flavor but a small amount of sugar will add extra food for the yeast, but larger amounts will slow down the action. Also sugar in the dough will add some to the browning of the crust by caramelization.

Milk is sometimes used as a liquid in bread, most times it is for flavor but the fats in it also add a bit of a shortening effect like other fats. Also milk adds to the browning of the crust by what is know as the Maillard Effect, a process similar to the caramelization of sugars. Milk also contains a protein called glutathione that weakens the gluten bond, but by heating the milk to above 180 (called scalding) it stops this process from happening. Also keep in mind that milk is only about 85% water so when using it instead of water the amount of milk used versus water will have to be increased or the amount of flour decreased.

Eggs add color as well as flavor to breads, but eggs egg white also toughen breads, these are useful when making high sugar breads or those with high fats. What is interesting is that the yolks contain enough fat to soften the dough, but the whole egg contains enough protein to over come this. Of course the whites separated from the yolks have a more toughing effect.

Other grains can be used to bake bread besides wheat, but none of them will have the amount of gluten that is contained in wheat, this will make heavier, less fluffy breads, and in fact different varieties of wheat have different gluten contents. When other grains such as rye are used in bread, often half or more of the flour is still white flour; this gives them some of the flavor of the other grains but still allows them to rise decently. In fact there are different types of wheat and the gluten content among these varies, that is covered in another chapter. For most of us, common all-purpose flour will do fine.

There are a couple other things that have interesting effects on the bread and the crust. For a soft tender crust, when the loaves are made and rising, just brush them with melted butter or lard, then cover with a damp towel. Leave the melted fat and the damp town off and it will make a heavier, crisper crust. If you beat an egg, with a bit of water and brush that on before baking you will get a nice glossy crust.

The other is the temperature you bake the bread at, if you bake it at a lower temperature such as around 350F, it will take longer to bake and will have a softer crust, if you bake it at a higher temperature as around 450F, the bread will bake faster and have a harder crust.

Even the amount of yeast you use is not critical, one of the packages that you buy in packs of three at the store has 2 ½ teaspoons of yeast, this is the amount you use of bulk yeast to equal 1 package, this also is the same yeast power as 1 cake of the older cake yeast. This amount will raise up to around 8 cups of flour made into dough, although it will take longer than if you use the normal 2 packages of yeast this amount of flour calls for in most recipes, some recipes will even call for 3 packages for this amount of flour, especially if there is a large amount of sugar in the recipe.

The biggest difference one will see by adding more yeast is that the time to raise will be slower with the one package, the recipe with 2 packages will raise faster, than but not as fast as the one with 3 packages. One must also know a large amount of sugar in a recipe will slow down the yeast so often, but not always the recipes that call for larger amounts of yeast have more sugars in them. Temperature has an effect also; modern bread yeasts work best in the range of 75-80 degrees, in most recipes , most call to start with water around 105-110F and dissolve the yeast in it, adding the flour and other ingredients at room temperature and natural cooling drops the dough temperature to that pretty quickly. This of course assumes a modern climate controlled kitchen, in an outdoor one you are pretty much at the mercy of the weather.

In really warm weather I start with water more in the 75F range because it will warm up. Cool weather can be interesting, a warm tent or building is handy to raise the dough in, if that is not available a large dutch oven and just a few coals on the bottom and lid can be used to maintain the temperature by being very careful and keeping an eye on it because if you get it to hot you will kill the yeast. Sometimes in such weather it is better to make some form of quick bread with a chemical leavening.

What I make sure I do with yeast bread in camp is to give myself plenty of time to get it ready if possible, if things happen to quickly and one is not ready to bake it yet it is just a simple task to punch the dough back down and let it rise again till one is ready to form it.

Now this information may seem a bit overwhelming to some, but by understanding it, we have the ability to tailor our bread to what we want without having to carry around a lot of recipes, because we now know how to make the bread do what we want as for texture and crust as well as flavor. Also it goes to show we don’t have to be real critical with the amounts as long as in the end we get the dough texture required. (This is often called soft dough with a ratio of around 3-3 ½ parts flour to liquid.) The actual amount of flour required will vary with the moisture content of the flour and the humidity in the atmosphere, one learns this with experience making bread, but it is at the level you can work the bread dough with out it sticking to your hands.

Getting back to making breads specifically in a dutch oven, I’ve found out that it is easier most times to make the bread up as dinner rolls or if you want, they can be called yeast biscuits. The shallow dutch ovens work best for this, it is also easy to decide how much bread to make up, a 10 inch shallow will be right for most recipes for 1 loaf, a 12 inch will work for about a loaf and a half and a 14 inch is right for 2 loaves. Also a 12 inch deep is good to make one very large loaf, although of course this will have to be sliced, the rolls can be just pulled out as needed.

What I do is start out with the amount of water (or other liquid) needed and then mix the bread from there. Bread is easy to make with out a specific recipe, for a full understanding it read the section of flour and meal in the section of this book on supplies as well as understanding the information in this chapter on shortening, sugars and milk. The goal here is to not get too much bread into the oven; we want it to have enough space to not be close enough to the lid to burn or to touch the lid, this will simply take experience. My basic bread recipe to follow will help with that. All these bread recipes to follow can also be made as sour dough; go to the reference on sour dough in the section on sour dough for information on how to do it.

This basic bread recipe here is what I use in camp; it’s always in my head, by going with the basic 2 ½ cups of wate/milk and a bit of knowledge on how things work you can make just about any kind of yeast bread with this. What is also simple is most every renactor has one of those 24 ounce tin plate or enamelware cups, to measure the water with. Just put in enough water to be right at 1 inch from the top, this is close enough and if you can’t tell what an inch is find a end finger or thumb joint on your hand that is right at an inch, most will have one.

The yeast is easy also, most camps will have a simple teas spoon to eat soup with, just fill it heaping with out leveling and that will be close enough to the “right amount” for 2 teaspoons to work. The rest you just also guess on, or use the same methods, by doing this rather than “exact’ measurements, it will make you cooking look more period to the time and the results will be close enough to never know you didn’t measure exact and a bonus is there will be far less dishes to do.

Basic Bread Recipe for 12 inch deep/14 inch shallow dutch oven/15 inch skillet/2 loaf pansUse half this recipe for a 10 inch shallow dutch oven/skillet/1 loafUse 3/4th for a 12 inch shallow dutch oven/skilletUse just the yeast, water, flour and salt if desired to make a crusty type French bread or use the milk, sugar and eggs to make sweet roll type dough, any item in between can be used if desired.Basic Yeast Bread2 ½ cups warm water/ scalded milk (use milk for sweet roll dough) 2-6 teaspoons yeast or 1-3 packages yeast (1 package of yeast is 2 ¼ teaspoon) 0-3 tablespoons sugar, honey or molasses (or up to ¾ cup for sweet roll dough)1 teaspoons salt (optional)0-3 tablespoons lard7-9 cups flour (the flour can be white flour or whole wheat/rye or a mix of types)1-2 beaten eggs (optional use for sweet roll dough)

Mix the yeast into the liquid along with the sugar and salt as well as ½ cup of flour. Cover and allow to get bubbly. Mix in enough of the flour to make a stiff dough and knead well, developing the gluten till the dough is smooth. The amount of flour needed will vary with the humidity. If there is time one can mix in enough of the flour to make a soft dough and allow to rise with out kneading before adding the rest of the flour and kneading. This will make a little better final product, but is not really needed if time does not allow.

When the well kneaded dough has doubled in size is needs punched down and formed into loaves or rolls. Following this recipe will make 2 loaves in bread pans, 1 large loaf in a 12 inch deep dutch oven or dinner rolls in a 14 inch shallow dutch oven or 15 inch skillet.

Let rise till doubled and bake 25 -45 minutes in a moderate to hot oven (350-425F). The bread will pull away from the edge of the pan and have a hollow sound when thumped. A meat thermometer inserted in the center will read 195F.

The following recipes are all based on my basic bread recipe above, the basic instructions are the same and will be given at the end of all the variations of it and they are the same as the basic recipe. Just like above use 1/2 for a 10 and 3/4th for a 12 shallow. The amount of yeast is left to you, base it on the time factor you have to get the bread done. Unless noted one can use any sweetener desired to fit camp supplies.

Sweet breadThis basic recipe will make dessert breads such as cinnamon raisin or cinnamon rolls, but of course is not limited to those two.

2 ½ cups warm scalded milk or one 12 ounce can evaporated unsweetened milk and 1 cup of warm water. (Sweetened condensed milk can also be used by leaving out the sugar.)2-6 teaspoons yeast or 1-3 packages yeast (1 package of yeast is 2 ¼ teaspoon)¾ cup of sugar1 teaspoons salt (optional)2 tablespoons of lard or 3 of butter2 beaten eggs7-9 cups all purpose flour

After raising the dough can be formed into what ever is desired and allowed to double and then bake.

Cinnamon rolls

When the finished dough has raised divide in half and roll out to a sheet ¼-38 inch thick. Cover the sheet with melted butter, 2-4 tablespoons for the whole recipe, using the larger amount will make a sticker roll, sprinkle the desired amount of cinnamon on top, 2-6 teaspoons for the whole batch, then cover with white or brown sugar, about a cup per recipe. Cut into desired lengths and place touching each other in the skillet or dutch oven. Allow to double and bake 25-35 minutes in a moderate oven. (Around 375F)

These can be iced if desired, for icing take 2 cups of confectioner’s sugar and stir in enough milk to make the mix spreadable cocoa powder or vanilla extract can be added before the milk if desired, water can also be used if needed. Spread over the warm rolls.

Lemon rolls

This is a basic variation of the cinnamon rolls I have made for years, it’s not one I’ve seen in any old cookbooks but the ingredients were available and they go over well.

Roll out the dough as for cinnamon rolls and cover with melted butter, instead of cinnamon sprinkle the butter with grated lemon peel and cover with white sugar. The white sugar blends better with the lemon, finish as for the cinnamon rolls. For icing use the same 2 cups of confectioner’s sugar, but add 1 teaspoon of lemon extract and thin with either water or lemon juice if available.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread (Raisins optional)

Take the basic sweet bread recipe adding 1-2 cup raisins if desired when mixing and divide as before. Roll it out a little thicker than the cinnamon rolls; ½ to ¾ inch is about right. Sprinkle with cinnamon, roll and seal the edge, and tuck in the ends and seal. Place this in loaf pans or in a 12 inch deep dutch oven. Bake in a moderate oven 30-40 minutes. The dutch ovens will work best in camp, the bread pans are better with a stove and oven.

This basic bread can be made using other dried fruits and/or nuts if desired. The cinnamon swirl can be used or not. If not doing the swirl rolling the dough out is not needed but can be formed like any other bread loaf or even made into rolls.

Rye breads

There are two types of rye bread, one is the types as made in Northern Europe and using all rye flour, these are often very heavy and dense because rye flour has very little gluten in it. When using rye flour exclusively it is better to use sourdough. The action of the sourdough on the rye flour makes it act like it has more gluten than it really has.

After the Civil War more wheat was grown in the United States because of both climate change and improved strains of wheat. A lot of the rye bread recipes were modified to use modern yeasts coming on the market, and part white flour, these are the easiest types to make in camp. These can have different amounts of white flour in them, but half white flour, half rye flour makes very good rye bread with good rye flour. Rye flour also makes stickier dough than just wheat flour but with practice this no problem.

Also some rye bread recipes use seeds in them, most often caraway, but also anise or fennel. These are not needed if they are not desired, but I like them in my rye breads.

Rye flour also comes as stone ground or as roller ground, with exceptions noted, either is fine although I prefer the harder to find roller ground.

There are many types of rye bread that were brought over from Europe by immigrants; I am doing some Americanized versions to what they changed to with the times. This is not intended to cover all types of rye breads but to give some ideas for some to make in camp.

Basic rye bread

2 ½ cups warm water2-6 teaspoons yeast or 1-3 packages yeast (1 package of yeast is 2 ¼ teaspoon)2 tablespoons sugar/ honey 1 teaspoons salt (optional)2 tablespoons lard1-2 tablespoons caraway seed (optional) 7-9 cups flour a ratio of around half rye half all purpose is what I use.When making rye breads I mix all the ingredients together with the exception of the white flour, this forms a nice sponge which I let work for a ½ hour to and hour depending on time factor and temperature. When this is working well I mix in the needed white flour to be able to knead it well with out excessive stickiness. This is allowed to rise till doubled; it is then made into loaves or rolls and baked 25 -45 minutes in a moderate to hot oven (375-425F).

Czech style rye breadThis is exactly the same as the basic recipe but it always uses roller ground rye flour and the caraway seed. This is to honor the Czech immigrants who brought roller mill flour making into my area in the 1870’s; to me it is not proper to call it that with out that type of flour. A small point friends of Czech descent and I consider important.

Austrian Type Rye Bread

Perhaps a loose term, but years ago I was able to sample a loaf of rye bread by a co-worker made in a local bakery in his home town in northern Austria. I was able to duplicate it from the sample and my co-worker was surprised and approved of it.

These are intended to be just a few of the recipes that can be made from the basic bread recipe, other grains can be substituted for part of the white flour, or other ingredients such as cheeses or dried fruits such as raisins added.can also be added.

How to make bread like Grandma

A recent conversation with a friend at the table in our breakfast nook brought this subject up. He had stopped over to sample some of my sourdough rye bread and to take a couple loaves home. He was telling me about the rye bread a friend of his Grandma used to bake. He had obtained the recipe after her death from the daughter. The daughter had mentioned she had tried many times but could not make it come out right. DJ mentioned his Mom and Grandma had tried it and could not get it just right.My mind rewound to something from years ago, my brother loves homemade bread, but he had told me one time that it was good, very good, but just didn’t taste like Grandma’s bread did and he was right. He wanted to know if I had Grandma’s recipe, but she never used one that I ever seen, not for just plain old white bread, she just mixed it up, they way I do it, a couple tablespoon’s of lard, maybe a teaspoon or so of sugar, a dash of salt and work in enough flour for a stiff dough. Well as I started traveling around with my cook camp, I noticed that my bread tasted different at different places, not a lot, but it was different, none of which was exactly like Grandma’s. I realized the places I went to had well water, and depending on where it was, it tasted different. I also remember a class I had on water treatment years before I remembered something from the class, a lot of national brands of many items uses water treatment to make them taste the same where ever they are made.I also remembered Grandma’s bread was never quite the same after she moved to town. What I did the next time we were hunting at the farm was to use the water out of the well. The well has very old pipes and a slight nitrate level, not serious, but we just haul our drinking water from Lincoln and refill at the neighbors who has a much better well. At supper time, my brother went over to the dutch oven full of bread, got himself a couple large pieces, covered it with butter and took a bite. The look on his face was priceless, “you did find Grandma’s recipe!”I had to tell him again, there was no written down recipe I’d ever seen. “You had better remember what you did different, this is Grandma’s bread.” I explained what I had done and now when I’m at the farm I use the water from the well.

Looks like you posted a whole cookbook there, Delmonico. i wish I had the time to read it all.

I haven't been making bread for 35 years. Only 2 but I've been cooking since I was a kid when my grandpa taught me how to fry an egg my first year in deer camp.

I don't really have an interest in yeast breads. I've made plenty and prefer the sourdough for pure flavor plus I can be anywhere with my dutch oven and as long as I have flour and water, I'll have yeast. I don't have to buy it.

My grandparents lived on a farm up in White Cloud, Kansas (Chief White Cloud fame) and grew, raised or made everything they needed. What they couldn't provide was bartered for with neighbors. Grandma made bread almost daily and I remember how much I loved it but it's difficult to get optimum flavor in a bread that's mixed up, proofed and baked within an hour or 2 when compared to a bread that proofs for 4 days before baking. If you whip up a bread with commercial yeast using only flour, water, yeast and salt and then whip up a sourdough using the same ingredients except replacing the commercial yeast with a levain, you would see a huge difference in taste and texture but you have to make the levain without the addition of commercial yeast. If you make yeast breads then you know what a sponge is. If starter is made with commercial yeast, it's nothing more than a sponge and not a real sourdough culture. Flour and water is all it takes along with proper procedure and some patience.

I never add fats and don't like to add sugars except on rare occasions like a sourdough rye I made last week where I substituted strong, black coffee for the water and added molasses to mellow it out. My breads are simple; water, flour, sourdough starter and salt. I sometimes do like adding extras for nutritional purposes or flavor enhancement like flax, quinoa, oats, multi-grain cereals, seeds, nuts, fruits, cheeses, bacon, herbs and spices. Things like that change it up a bit but my favorite loaf is just a good ol' fashioned sourdough wheat like in the photo below.

I don't bake breads to try and impress people. I do it because I like the outcome and it takes me back to a simpler time. I mix everything in a 100 year old crock bowl that my grandma used and her old woolen spoons. It's really just carrying out a family tradition that's almost forgotten. The most important part is we're both doing what we like.

Your loss on not reading it, there is enough information in there that you can just toss the recipes and work off the basic.

And yes, the whole book will be around 500 pages and should be done by this time next year. Funny thing is, the info in it will save anyone willing to take the time to read it years of internet searching since very little of it is in one place, on the net or in old cook books, 20 years of serious research, several 100 copies already spoke for when it's done.

Sourdough comes about by WILD YEAST (Saccharomyces exiguus) that occurs naturally on grains. Commercial yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is NOT wild yeast. I grow my yeast from flour and water. I don't go to the grocery store and buy it to add to my starter. After I explain this, I'm done arguing about the subject.

What's the difference?Bakers/Brewers Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) are not bugs or bacteria. The scientific name describes what they are. Saccharo means sugar, myces means fungus. They are a unicellular fungus that like starch/sugar. They are not a type of mould, as moulds tend to be multicellular. It has been cultured by man to produce results very quickly. That's why it would never work for a sourdough starter.

Wild yeasts (Saccharomyces exiguus) are generally acid resistant, which is why sourdough is sour. A sourdough starter is a type of S.C.O.B.Y (Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast). Sourdough starters typically contain acid resistant wild yeast and a host of lactobacillus bacteria. Lactobacillus bacteria are responsible for the sour taste in sourdough. The acid produces by lacto-bacillus lowers (makes more acidic) the pH of the dough, which in turn makes it a more hostile environment for other types of bacteria resulting in a longer shelf life. Natural preservatives, baby!

In 1978 scientists performed an experiment where they irradiated flour to sterilize it. They filled 100 sterilized jars with nothing but flour and water in them and left them open to "capture the yeast from the air" as the myths say. Out of 100 jars, 3 of them actually grew a sourdough starter. The other 97 did nothing other than rot. That's a 3% success rate but that's not what captures my attention. The 97% failure rate is what I see. Not a very reliable way to create a sourdough culture. What's it prove? That the yeast is present in the flour and has nothing to with wild yeast "floating" in the air. Fungus and bad bacteria float in the air too.

As far as checking out your recipes.... I don't need information to make bread. I'm very successful at it and I don't work off of other people's recipes. I make up my own using my imagination and good ol' fashioned math.

I could help you with your sourdough starter but you're dead set on the notion that your way is the right way. The fact that you haven't been successful at making a sourdough starter the right way tells me a lot. I'm sure you're a great guy. The best to ya in all you do.

It's micro-organisms that eat carbs and sugar and belch and phart CO2.

If you would have taken time to do some reading you would find the basic recipes work for both yeast and sourdough.

The sourdough is sour because the lactic bacteria in it convert the alcohol to lactic acid, the same process that makes milk sour. That's why you can use salertus aka baking soda with both sour milk (store bought butter milk is just soured skim milk) or the sourdough starter to cause the chemical reaction to make CO2 to raise the bread as a quick bread. Baking powder is just a dry acid with baking soda added and the liquid starts the chemical reaction.

Bread yeast doesn't work well for sourdough because it lacks the alcohol tolerance (about 5-6%) over the wine yeasts I use which has a alcohol tolerance of 12-17%.

I teach bread making so you can use dry yeast or sourdough with out having to have a whole box of recipes, I hate recipes.